How do I get back to Kansas?

Sir,
So I bought an Es335 Bass kit. it's beautiful. All of the pieces fit together well. It's really a great job. And I'm really excited about putting it all together and playing it! I wanted to stain it rather than paint it to preserve the natural tone of the wood. I chose a color that I thought I'd like from Wudtone - Surfer Girl - which in the pictures looks like a pair of faded well worn blue jeans but turns out to be greenish in color. I sanded down with 220 grit, wiped down and applied a base coat. ...It's just ugly! I'm convinced I didn't do something right but before I throw in the stained towel and paint it white I wanted to know if there's any way to sand back down to the flame-top and start over. I'm also convinced now that I'm all musician and no luthier! I've learned my lesson! Please Mr. Wizard! Get me back to Kansas! If that's not possible can I seal the stain and paint over it without bleed thru?

Can you provide more info about your process. How did you sand before staining? How many coats of stain are in the picture? Do you do any grain filling prior to staining, if so what did you use?

Wow... Can see why you are not a happy camper....
It has been a while since we stopped supplying wudtone so my advice at would be to contact the manufacturer for help and advice.
In the mean time, give it a light scuff sand with 400 grit and try another coat.
Sometimes the first coat can look like hell.

Hate to say it but to me it looks like you've sanded right through the veneer :(

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Originally Posted by Fretworn

Can you provide more info about your process. How did you sand before staining? How many coats of stain are in the picture? Do you do any grain filling prior to staining, if so what did you use?

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Thanks for the reply. Here are the steps:
I wiped down with a dry cloth
I hand sanded lightly with 220 grit. (barely raised any dust)
I wiped down again and then applied a base coat. (I didn't apply filler)
I let the base coat dry for 2 days and then used fine steel wool to smooth out.
I wiped down with a dry cloth and then applied another base coat. The picture is the final result.

Thanks Dingobass. I'll try your suggestion. I will contact Wudtone though I'm not real confident about the result after this and being misled on the color. If all else fails can I seal this bad job up and paint over it?

Thanks Dedman. The pictures don't really tell the whole story. The veneer is still intact. I only hand sanded once. The stain job is really that bad. I don't know if I didn't wait long enough between applications before applying the next coat. I thought 48 hours would be enough.

I'm just wondering if (apart from the obvious colour deviation from expected) that it's the worst case of glue seepage I've yet seen on a PBG. The veneer should have easily absorbed the stain easily and evenly if it wasn't a glue issue.

Can you take some more photos from a bit closer of the finish?

Having re looked at the pics on the big screen, I too am wondering if some of the problem is due to glue seepage... but if it is, wow..
My Spidie senses tell me it has more to do with the product, perhaps it was an old batch that had been sitting around for a while.
Wudtone has a limited shelf life of around six months, even less if the bottles weren't gassed to remove any air.. This could cause some funkyness to happen

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Originally Posted by Moose60

Thanks Dingobass. I'll try your suggestion. I will contact Wudtone though I'm not real confident about the result after this and being misled on the color. If all else fails can I seal this bad job up and paint over it?

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Yes, you can scuff sand and apply a good quality finish over it.
My recommendation would be to use a Nitro finish such as Behlen which is available in rattle cans.
They make a really nice Seafoam green, as close to the original as it gets.

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Originally Posted by Simon Barden

I'm just wondering if (apart from the obvious colour deviation from expected) that it's the worst case of glue seepage I've yet seen on a PBG. The veneer should have easily absorbed the stain easily and evenly if it wasn't a glue issue.

Can you take some more photos from a bit closer of the finish?

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I'll send more pics today. It looked to me like glue spots too. Maybe a bad batch of stain but It looks to me like it's kind of adhering to something other than the wood. I tested on a 2x4 pin and the stain went on OK with no splotches on the first application.

Thank all who replied for your invaluable help. After consulting with a local luthier he determined that it isn't the glue that's showing but the stain I used. It did not absorb well in some places but went pretty deep in others. In other words sanding back is not an option. He agreed that applying a good quality nitro after a scuff sanding would work without bleed through. Thanks for the advice Dingobass. I chose a solid color pretty close to what I was originally shooting for ( That Aqua Blue is non-existent without some considerable mixing and air brush skills :) and just wanted to share some pictures of the progress so far and ask a question. Attachment 19419Attachment 19420Attachment 19421. The SeaFoamBack shot shows the wood grain showing through the paint which I'm liking alot. Do any feel that I'll need a sanding sealer before I apply the clear coat?

adding one pictureAttachment 19422

Well that is certainly an immense improvement on the before shot. Great save DB and Moose!

Too late for sanding sealer now. As I see it, you've got two choices. Either you make a feature of the grain and now use a dyed grain filler in a complimentary colour of your choosing to highlight the pores. You'll have to then sand the filler back flat, which will probably need at least one more coat of nitro before it's thick enough to take sanding without any sand-through. You can then clear coat over that.

Otherwise you simply apply a lot of clear coats. It will follow the ups and downs of the grain and pores, so you'll need quite a few coats before it's thick enough to sand flat (if you want a really nice glossy finish).

Or you could take an easier way out and copy some of Gibson's lower-range finishes and use a satin finish clearcoat and leave it 'as is' (excluding fixing any obvious runs), which will tend to mask the uneven finish from the grain/pores and save having to add so many extra clear coats, plus the cutting back and polishing. It saves an awful lot of manual labour, which is why Gibson can make them so (relatively) cheaply in the US.

great rescue indeed!
I'd personally go with clear coats, either leave them as they come as Simon suggested (only need a few coats to seal it if leaving the grain to show) or lightly sand between coats to level and eventually fill the grain. On my ES I didn't sand at all until I got to the clear coats.

Great suggestions! I've seen a few ESs with the pores showing nicely and I figured as Simon pointed out that I can just keep clear-coating until I can sand flat. (That's gonna get kinda expensive) I only have four cans of Clear. How many coats would you say are needed (including the neck before i'm flat? I'm not saying money is no object but my wife says "Finish it" cuz I'm in too deep to back out now.

I would have thought that 4 cans of clear should be enough (providing they are the larger 13oz/400ml size cans). You could probably do a pre-flattened finish guitar with 2 cans, and you might get by with only 3. The neck should be made from maple and so be smooth (plus you have a rosewood fretboard which you won't spray), so you won't need to put too many coats on that.

Whilst they should be going on 'wet', keep the coats relatively thin and don't be tempted to spray to much on at once. That way leads to runs and a lot of annoying repair work which slows you down. More thin coats are better than a few thick ones.

If you plan to scrape the binding, rather than leaving it all green, then do it now, before the paint hardens too much - which makes the scraping a lot harder.

Since I'm using a Stew Mac kit I asked and they suggest I apply 2 or 3 coats of Sanding Filler before I apply the clear coat to fill in the porous wood and get it ready to accept the clear coat. But I'm really trying to keep the grainy look under a nice clear coat finish so I'm thinking your suggestions are right on the money. My thinking and research says that the Sanding filler is gonna cloud the look I'm trying to get here.
I applied five coats of clear to the neck and it's looking pretty good for an amateur. (See Pics). Am I ready to start polishing here or do I wait the 6 weeks to let the clear coat harden? Somewhere down the road I want to white wash inside the F-Holes but I can't think of a way to do that. Maybe I should've done that first, huh?
If you take a look at the pic SeafoamScrapedBindingTop you can see where the masking tape over-ran the bare wood. Since StewMac doesn't sell markers in Seafoam do any have a DIY repair for that that doesn't require re-taping/spraying?
Attachment 19479Attachment 19480Attachment 19481

You can wet-sand the clear coat back flat after a couple of days, but don't go too high on the grit numbers. I'd stick to around 320 maximum at this stage. For a high gloss you want to get the finish so that there are no shiny dimples in the finish when you look at the guitar at a shallow angle up to a light (a small angle will create shadows and reflections in any small dips which you wont see with a light shining directly on to the finish). If you think you have sanded quite a lot of finish off but still have large dimples, then it's time for more clear coats and then repeat the process. Once the whole surface is flat and obviously all sanded, then leave it for at least two weeks for the finish to harden before finer wet sanding and then polishing. The longer you can wait the better the result will be, but sanding increases the surface area of the lacquer and so helps trapped solvent to evaporate more quickly.

If you can get a small bottle of the seafoam lacquer then you can always touch it up with a paint brush (and use cellulose thinners to clean the brush). Nitro vapours are still harmful so wear a vapour mask when doing this. I'll be doing some manual touching-up on my ES-3 where I lost track of the binding edge and scraped too much paint away. I'd still recommend taping up the edge though when you do this unless you have a very steady hand. You're really better off getting some paint/lacquer on the binding and then scraping the excess off an hour or so after painting (so the paint isn't too hard and it comes off easier).

Just an update on my progress on this. I've followed everybody's advice here and shot three cans of clear coat. It looks great! I'm gonna leave it to harden for about a month. The wood grain on the back of the body is still raised but, if I'm understanding right, that should be taken care of when I wet sand before polishing. I'm thinking of black-facing the head-stock and adding a custom decal. I seem to remember that some kind soul on this forum is an expert at that :)

amazing colour!!